Feeling sad today. My last day here and my emotions are mixed. I don’t want to go home; I’m ready to go home and see Mike + Belle + feel normal; I wish was staying here until Sunday. Of course, I have regrets already. I wonder how I’ll feel when I am back home — that life sort of stopped while I was here.

I drive my obsessions into Synge, my thesis, Front Porch, and the new semester.

Dublin — The journey comes to an end — 5 weeks later, Ireland is over + so is Scotland. Had a great time in Scotland; lots of drunken fun. Kelly headed back tonite. Katie + Anne went out. I just couldn’t swing another night out drinking. I left Cork — sadly — in a whirl. I was hungover + rushed + I didn’t even say goodbye.Continue reading →

En route Chicago — On my way home. I’m finally ready to be there after a long weekend of traveling. Ireland — studying abroad — was different: I felt home there. Traveling with friends is traveling with friends — exhausting but fun. It’s hard to believe it’s over, wanting to return to Ireland and study Synge and just write and explore.

In 2 months I’ll be back in Europe — France + Spain — with Mike this time. Wanting to “live” abroad again. Wanting the life that Synge and other writers had — living in new places. Makes me think I’ll never get there. To become more than we’re meant to be…

In the backyard, I watched you rake leaves, red leaves in piles for us to jump in. No, I’ve never watched you rake leaves and that’s what I wish for. A fall day with the smell of Halloween on our breaths, piles of red leaves, a backyard another backyard, that place to call ours. But we never made it there. You hurt over the past and who I used to be. You let the parallel lines we spoke of veer off the road. I wish for all of this sometimes. Somewhere in the city you, always you.

My latest published journal entry raises an interesting question: How to produce art without thinking of one’s reality? That is, how do we — as artists — handle creating art that might offend/upset/clash with our real life.

I struggle with this. When I was working on my MFA thesis, I wrote a book of poems centered on (very abstractly) a past relationship that I was in prior to meeting my husband. Why?